Friday, December 21, 2012

Scenario: vCenter server was upgraded from 5 to 5.1a and after that the vcenter server became too sluggish and slow.
The inventory service was also taking too much of time to load
In the task manager the memory usage was almost 100%,
most of the memory was eaten by multiple java.exe

What to do: for vcenter being very sluggish, high memory usage by multiple java.exe

vCenter Server

Change the wrapper.java.additional.9 setting in the wrapper.conf file located in <installation_directory>\VMware\Infrastructure\tomcat\conf folder.

Open the file and search for wrapper.java.additional.9

Change the setting to desired value, in my case 512 MB.

Save and close the file.

vCenter Single Sing On

Also here, change the wrapper.java.additional.9 setting in the wrapper.conf file located in <installation_directory>\VMware\Infrastructure\SSOServer\conf folder.

Open the file and search for wrapper.java.additional.9

Change the setting to desired value, in my case once again 512 MB.

Save and close the file.

vCenter Inventory Service

Change the wrapper.java.maxmemory setting in wrapper.conf located in the <installation_directory>\VMware\Infrastructure\Inventory Service\conf folder.

Open the file and search for wrapper.java.maxmemory

Change the setting to desired value, in my case 1024 MB.

Save and close the file.

Profile-Drive Storage Service

Also here, change the wrapper.java.maxmemory setting in wrapper.conf located in the <installation_directory>\VMware\Infrastructure\Profile-Driven Storage\conf folder.

Open the file and search for wrapper.java.maxmemory

Change the setting to desired value, in my case 512 MB.

Save and close the file.

Now that you have changed the settings, restart the services or the
vCenter Server for the changes to take effect. Try to tweak around with
the settings and find out what best suits your environment.
sincere thanks to : http://defaultreasoning.com/2012/09/27/tweaking-java-exe-memory-usage-on-vcenter-server-5-1/

vcenter inventory service being too slow to start : http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2032828

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

SD/USB requires setup of
separate scratch area in shared storage to have persistent logs and crash
dumps. This is an additional configuration step and needs to be
remembered and documented. Personally, I do not recommend SD/USB, as
maintenance of this infrastructure does not align well with established server
administration methods.

2.

BFS(Boot from SAN) is great for large
environments, where generally there is an experienced SAN administrator and
they are able to maintain the BFS infrastructure. BFS gives you wonderful
flexibility, as the blades themselves keep no state other than BIOS
settings. In addition, there is a considerable saving in eliminating 2
physical local disks from each ESXi server. If you have 200+ of these
servers then this is significant capex that is eliminated. The cost of shared
storage allocated for BFS is insignificant, as this is only ~6 GB of RAID5
storage per host.

Also note that BFS is not an
option when your shared storage is NFS only (e.g. NetApp arrays).

BFS from iSCSI arrays is
possible with hardware initiators, but it rather complex to set up and
maintain, so it does not mesh very well with the small scale of typical iSCSI
installations and the way they are operated.

So, BFS is really mainly for FC
SAN.

3.

On the other hand, the mirrored
pair of local disks is very simple to set up and the boot from it is very
simple to maintain. All server administrators are familiar with it.
It nicely decouples the boot problems from the configuration of shared
storage. I generally recommend this setup for smaller environments, especially
the less sophisticated ones, where there may not be a specialized SAN
administrator. The simplicity of management compensates for increased
capex.

4.

So my rules of thumb are very
simple:

·Auto-deploy
- no, too complex for little benefit compared with BFS

·SD/USB
- no, too awkward to maintain

·Mirrored local
disk - yes, for small
unsophisticated environments and where shared storage is NFS or iSCSI

·BFS
- yes, for large environments with FC shared storage and good FC SAN skills

Monday, December 17, 2012

Issue : unable to migrate VMs from one host to another in a 2 node cluster with dvSwitch.
“network card 'network adapter 1' has a DVPort backing, which is not supported. This could be because the host does not support VDS or because the host has not joined VDS”

Background (may be irrelevant) : the source host was disconnected from the vcenter server.
restarted the services inside the esxi 5 host (services.sh restart) and added it back to the host.

Resolution: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/switches/datacenter/vsg/sw/4_2_1_VSG_1_1/troubleshooting/guide/VSG_TS_03Install.html
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=2004892
added the host to the dvSwitch using the wizard.
Issue Resolved.

Issue: - both the hosts of the cluster are in a disconnected state.What didnt work:
udpated the ip address of the vcenter server in the VC>administration>runtime settings.
removed and added the hosts back to the vcenter server but no go.
Opened the ilo for another host and renamed the host with lowercase.
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1003735
and made sure the file the entries in the files
/etc/hosts
/etc/resolv.conf
/etc/sysconfig/network
/etc/vmware/esx.conf
Reinstalled the management agents and restarted the vCenter service in the host but only one host stayed connected and the other one keeps getting disconnected after 1 or 2 minutes.
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1003714
on the nonworking host tried
service mgmt-vmware stop && service vmware-vpxa stop && service vmware-vmkauthd stop && service xinetd restart && rpm -qa | grep -i vpxa | awk '{print $1}' | xargs rpm -ef $1 && userdel vpxuser && rpm -qa | grep -i aam | awk '{print $1}' | xargs rpm -ef $1 && service mgmt-vmware start && service vmware-vmkauthd start
made sure the services are started back on and tried to connect but no go.
Nslookup works from the host to other hosts, vcenter server and vice versa,
reverse nslookup works too.
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1001493
Updated the /etc/opt/vmware/vpxa/vpxa.cfg file with the correct vcenter ip address but no go.
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/microsite.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=1012382&sliceId=1&docTypeID=DT_KB_1_1
Checked the port requirements for the host from the vcenter using telent and
443, 902, 80, 5989 they were open but 623 for the DPM wasnt.
http://kb.vmware.com/selfservice/microsites/search.do?language=en_US&cmd=displayKC&externalId=1005757
added the
<heartbeat>
<notRespondingTimeout>120</notRespondingTimeout>
</heartbeat>
but no go.

What worked/what i forgot to check: noticed issue with the Managed IP Address in vCenter Settings as one of the hosts IP address was mentioned there
Changed it to vCenter IP
Finally turned out to be an issue with windows firewall. Disabling firewall reconnected all the hosts.
Hosts stayed connected after that. worked on the DNS pointers and fixed the DNS issues as there was a change in IP address done on one of the hosts

Thursday, December 6, 2012

concern: how to configure the Virtual Connect (Downlink) in accordance with vSphere feature about LACP.What i came to know :

VMware provides a number of
different NIC teaming algorithms, any of the available algorithms can be used,
except IP Hash. IP Hash requires switch assisted load balancing (802.3ad),
which Virtual Connect does not support 802.3ad with server downlink ports.

HP and VMware recommend using
Originating Virtual Port ID with Standard vSwitch, and Physical NIC Load when
using vDS and NetIOC,

About Me

A passionate IT Professional with an endless fetish for innovative Science & Technology.I am a lot of things and a few among them areAn avid gamer,loves photography(not anymore),love a lot of variety of music, movies (foreign),like a lot of manga, anime series and most importantly love life.